Wayfinding ideas from the Festival of Place 2019

A new event in London showed up on my radar this year, called the Festival of Place. Curated by Christine Murray and her team at The Developer, its ambition is to ensure that developers are informed of the best ideas and practices in placemaking. For context, I'll also quote Christine in this piece: "[...] whether a client is public or private, the developer is at the top of the food chain. The risk lies, and buck stops with them."

I was lucky to attend thanks to the free ticket from The Developer (via the Sign Design Society), and this is my coverage of the event from a wayfinder's perspective. There was no conference stream addressing the topic of wayfinding specifically, so I thought I'd identify ideas to which our community could potentially respond. Here's what caught my eye/ ear and why it could be of interest:

—Tim Gill shared a compelling picture on the 'license' to roam, or the independent mobility of children (Fig. 2). It shows how the catchment in which children are allowed to play / venture unsupervised around their home, has consistently and considerably shrunk over the course of four generations in the UK. I wondered if perhaps as wayfinders we could help reverse this trend? [1] Designing for children means designing for "dwelling" but also "mobility". While there's no silver bullet, we could consider how our input can influence space design, in particular in ensuring that connecting paths between places are navigable. As a first step, Tim's advice is "to think about how signage/ wayfinding can be designed to be playful and engaging for children." 

Fig 2. "How four generations of eight-year olds have seen their 'license' to roam—and their space to play—progressively reduced to almost zero." Natural England, via Tim Gill (Rethinking Childhood) at the Festival of Place, London, July 2019.

—Hannah Wright and her team at Urban95 conducted a brilliant Virtual Reality session that allowed those who tried it out to experience the city at 95cm (37 inches), the average height of a 3-year old. The VR helmet on, I found myself standing more or less at undercarriage level, on a relatively narrow and cluttered pavement of a busy one-way road, feeling completely disoriented. My head was in the middle of clouds of exhaust from the traffic and the roaring noise of car engines rang in my ears. Being taller as an adult, most of the effects tend to be subdued and are much less noticeable, so it may be hard to fully grasp the wayfinding challenges faced by a young child. As I frantically looked around to find my bearings, the absence of cues that could have led me to a safe space made me all the more appreciative of them. Think landmarks, both distant and near; landscape features; the potential use of colour, contrast, and floor markings.

—How our cognitive abilities are affected by air pollution got a mention from Robin Howie of Fieldwork Facility, in his supergraphics project Brainteaser with the Hammersmith & Fulham Borough Council. He also discussed how information designers can address the needs of today's "smart cities" in representing the data that we're capturing from sensors around us in an accessible format and bring useful, current (potentially real-time) and contextual knowledge on our behaviour and the environment around us to the street. Where content, format and location meet, environmental graphics can be striking messengers for a place (fig. 3). [2]

—Sarah Weir talked about the Olympic Park and how the best design combines "head, heart, hand". Great advice for the wayfinders.

—Joy Nazzari of dn&co ran a place purpose workshop and she was characteristically upfront about the hollowness of taglines such as "live, work, play". Creating exceptional projects requires dialog and getting into the nitty-gritty of what makes the place unique and embracing it. It's both a moral and commercial imperative. A group exercise required participants to imagine themselves as a developer team, identify a project of interest (commercial or residential), draw a vision statement (the place purpose) for it, and sketch up an action plan in accordance with the intended spirit of the project. Although somewhat brief, the exercise was helpful in giving us a valuable glimpse into the challenges in building new places.

The event made me realise that there were many ways in which wayfinders help support the identity of places. In advising where signs go and what goes on them, we are privy to conversations that have the potential to enhance a developer's understanding and vision for their project. Engaging stakeholders, balancing conflicting views and bringing consensus to a table is part of our toolkit. It is necessary to reflect on the role we can play in that space.

That's it for now. Have a nice week! [3]

Extras

[1] Read this for reasons why reversing this trend and expanding children's play spaces to the wider city is important. Tim Gill's "No fear" is also an interesting read and is accessible online.

[2] Robin Howie's speaker notes and slides are online here.

[3] There was more to the Festival of Place; the above are just personal highlights with regards to wayfinding/ sign design. It only gets another mention from me here, so other ideas will find their way directly from my notes into the work I do. I'd be remiss though if I didn't tell you of this recording, where Tim Tompkins (of Times Square Alliance) shares how/ why Time Square's retained its "weird and unique" character... Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Fig 3. Where content, format and location meet, environmental graphics can be striking messengers for a place. Sign designers have a role to play in representing the data that we're capturing from sensors around us in an an accessible format— bringing useful, current (potentially real-time) and contextual knowledge on human behaviour and the environment around us into the public realm. This is an exciting opportunity for connected places. Photos (c) Robin Howie (Fieldwork Facility) at the Festival of Place, London, July 2019.